To the Editor:
In a recent story about former BB&T CEO John Allison's support of Ayn Rand's laissez-faire ideas, including a gold standard, ["
But Greenspan can't "back away" from something he hasn't believed or supported for decades. Remember, this is a man who for two decades reveled in wielding the manipulative power granted to him as Fed chairman — a job he once (rightly) argued should not exist. The New York Times has called him "the infallible maestro of the financial system."
Free markets don't have "infallible maestros"; they liberate us from such 'maestros' — the central planners who have time and again falsely claimed the ability and the right to orchestrate (dictate) millions of economic lives.
Greenspan long ago degenerated into another central planner — and a particularly bad one, at that, both because of his highly inflationary policies (a fundamental cause of the crisis) and because he implemented them under the banner of laissez-faire.Alex Epstein
Analyst
Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights
Irvine, Calif.